A gas turbine engine generally includes a fan and a core arranged in flow communication with one another. The core of the gas turbine engine generally includes, in serial flow order, a compressor section, a combustion section, a turbine section, and an exhaust section. The fan includes a plurality of circumferentially spaced fan blades extending radially outward from a rotor disk. Each of the plurality of fan blades generally includes an airfoil portion and a dovetail root portion. The dovetail root portion may be slidably received in a complementary slot formed in the rotor disk to attach the fan blade to the rotor disk. At least a portion of the air flowing over the fan blades may be provided to the core of the gas turbine engine.
During operation of the gas turbine engine, ambient air is channelled between adjacent rotating fan blades and pressurized thereby, which may generate thrust for powering an aircraft in flight. Fan platforms provide a radially inner flowpath boundary for the airflow channel between the plurality of fan blades. The fan platforms are located between adjacent fan blades, near the rotor disk. At least certain fan assemblies have been developed using discrete platforms, independently joined to the rotor disk between adjacent fan blades. These separate platforms must have suitable strength for accommodating both centrifugal loads and impact loads, such as those due to a bird strike, during operation.
In at least certain embodiments, the discrete platforms may include components formed of various materials, attached using, e.g., a resin injection method. In order to limit an amount of resin seeping into any voids and to strengthen the fan platform, carbon fiber reinforced polymer inserts can be positioned in any such void. However, carbon fiber reinforced polymer inserts can be heavy and labor-intensive to form accurately. Accordingly, a fan platform having one or more inserts positioned within interior voids that are lighter and less labor-intensive to form would be useful. Specifically, a fan platform having one or more inserts within the interior voids that are lighter, but may still maintain a desired shape would be particularly beneficial.